Latest Technology News

Microsoft competes the old-fashion way with its web browser -- innovation and marketing -- and that's a fairly recent trend. There are reasons companies advertise their products. Promotion raises awareness and, ideally, product adoption. Finally, after years of steady decline, Internet Explorer has sustained growth, at least for five months -- that's a quantifiable trend. In fact, IE was the only major browser to increase usage share in March. Additionally, Microsoft finally sees payback from its risky strategy of not making IE9 Windows XP compatible.

Net Applications releases new data the first of every month, but I waited a day to make absolutely sure this statement was no April Fools prank: "With a gain of .99 percent last month and a net gain of 1.2 percent global usage share over the last five months, Internet Explorer has stabilized and even reversed its usage share declines of the last few years".

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Dell on Monday announced it will be acquiring top thin client maker Wyse Technology for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition will help grow Dell's desktop virtualization portfolio and drive alternative compute models such as cloud client computing.

Now that the consumer PC market is no longer the growth vehicle it once was, Dell has been gradually shifting gears to focus on enterprise solutions.

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If you need to check how your kids, employees or anyone else might be using a shared PC then you could install a complex parental controls or monitoring tool to record every detail.

Or, alternatively, you might just download NirSoft’s UserAssistView. It’s free, and a tiny 35KB download, but is still powerful enough to show you which programs are being launched on your PC, and when.

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Security vendor NoVirusThanks has released SSDT View, a 64-bit (only) tool that can show you the contents of your System Service Descriptor Table, perhaps highlighting changes made by rootkits and other stealthy malware.

There are of course plenty of antirootkit tools around that can do something similar, and a whole lot more, but these are generally aimed at Windows experts. SSDT View is safer, and far simpler, which makes the program accessible to a far wider audience.

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Fancy the idea of using the Windows 8 UI but don’t feel like going as far as installing the consumer preview version of the OS? Look no further than a transformation pack to give your operating system a makeover and a completely new look. If you’re working with Windows 7 you can use Windows 8 UX Pack 4.0, while Windows 8 Transformation Pack 4.0 can be used in everything from Windows XP and up. Both apps bring the look and feel of Windows 8 to your desktop with no need for complex tweaking.

The two skinning app’s  version numbers have been brought in line with each other, and there are a number of changes to investigate. Windows 8 UX Pack 4.0 now better mimics the look of Windows 8 thanks to the switch to using the Segoe UI font and inclusion of all of the desktop wallpapers from the Windows 8 Consumer Preview.

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Today, hacktavist group Anonymous put to rest one of the most important debates about Barack Obama. Is he really a US citizen? Only native-born Americans are legally permitted to be president, and early during his 2008 election campaign Obama fought off accusations that he was born in another country and not the great state of Hawaii. The accusations turn out to be true. But his place of origin is farther out. Barack Obama was born on another planet.

Anonymous published the stunning revelatory material to Pastebin, marking its most courageous hack to date. For anyone questioning the group's motivations, the stolen material puts to rest any doubt about being a force of good. Hacktavists obtained emails and other documents from Obama's BlackBerry, along with foiled plans to invade the earth. The White House immediately issued a denial, calling the disclosure a prank.

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Small and medium sized business are quickly moving to the cloud to reduce IT costs, a new study shows. The number of cloud services is expected to double over the next five years, and the number of small business using at least one cloud service will triple during that same period.

Cloud computing offers small business the opportunity to access the computing power of much larger corporations at a fraction of the cost. In fact, the survey shows that half of all SMBs see the cloud as becoming more important to their business.

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Another week --  month, actually --- is behind us and a huge number of software releases to keep track of. If you feel like you may have missed out on some of the biggest releases, this roundup is here to get you back up to speed.

iolo System Mechanic Free 10.8.3.51 is a great free tool for optimizing your system, but if you’re more concerned about protecting your privacy by securely deleting files, take a look at Disk Wipe 1.5. Auslogics Disk Defrag 3.4.1.0 is a free utility to replace Windows’ defragmentation tool which now offers better stability and performance. There’s also a Pro version of the program available –Auslogics Disk Defrag Pro 4.0.1.50. Infamous system cleaner CCleaner 3.17.1689 and CCleaner Portable 3.17.1689 feature improved cookie options, better support for Chrome and a host of other fixes and enhancements.

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For all the talk about the post-PC era and rise of alternate chip architectures, Intel defies gravity's pull. The microprocessing giant's dominance grows stronger, not lesser, which is strange juxtaposition to analyst predictions about media tablets and smartphones running ARM processors ending the PC's decades-long supremacy.

This week, iSuppli reports that Intel's share of the semiconductor market reached its highest level in a decade, 15.6 percent, largely based on its core chip business. "Intel in 2011 saw its revenue jump by 20.6 percent", Dale Ford, head of iSuppli Electronics and Semiconductor Research, says. "This outpaced every other semiconductor supplier in the Top 20 with the exception of Qualcomm Inc. and ON Semiconductor, both of which also saw exceptionally high levels of growth based on a combination of organic expansion and key acquisitions".

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Earlier in March, I wrote about a $99 USB-powered monitor from AOC that caught my attention, because I am always looking for an effective way to mobilize the multi-display setup I have in my home office.

I've been using the screen for about two weeks now, and I'd like to share my results with you, and maybe you'll consider picking up one in the last 24 hours that they're still on sale. Heck, maybe you'll even pay full price for one. I'm sure stranger things have happened...

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As Research in Motion begins to circle the drain, there is one last bright spot for the company that may prevent an all-out collapse: US President Barack Obama. While it may seem somewhat silly, Obama's continued use of his BlackBerry is indicative of a large group of core users that have not abandoned the platform by and large: government.

Obama came from a generation of politicians that found their BlackBerries indispensable tools in the day-to-day business of politics. The smartphone has become so commonplace in Washington that our President famously refused to give up his own device upon taking office in 2009.

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There are no snow days on the Internet. If you work from home and write online like I do, drudgery never ends. Or does it? This Saturday, Anonymous may change that.

"To protest SOPA, Wallstreet, our irresponsible leaders and the beloved bankers who are starving the world for their own selfish needs out of sheer sadistic fun, on March 31, Anonymous will shut the Internet down", so claims a February 19 Pastebin post.

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According to reports from former Washington Post reporter Brian Krebs, the Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg, a major data security breach is currently being investigated which could affect millions of credit card numbers.

Visa, MasterCard, and Discover Financial have issued statements to the media that address the incident, but none have addressed the scope of the breach because investigations are still under way.

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March 30 is finally here. Can you believe it took so long to arrive? Today, AT&T is taking preorders for the tasty Nokia Lumia 900. Yes, tasty. What? You think only Google's Ice Cream Sandwich is sweet? Not so. Windows Phone 7.5 "Mango" Commercial Release 2 is, too. It's yours on a swanky Nokia smartphone pimped with Carl Zeiss lens for the 8-megapixel camera and pumped with speedy LTE for data. For 99 bucks, AT&T practically gives away Lumia 900.

Many of you think so, too. Earlier in the week I asked: "Will you buy Nokia Lumia 900 Windows Phone for $99?" The overwhelming majority of respondents will -- nearly three out of four. The Finnish phone maker bet the company on Microsoft's mobile OS and brings this handset to a large, overlooked market. Nokia's US presence is mighty invisible outside T-Mobile. If Lumia 900 and its companions fail, so may Nokia.

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Thursday evening, BlackBerry maker Research in Motion posted its fourth quarter 2012 results, marking major losses: a 21 percent quarterly decline in BlackBerry smartphone shipments (11.1 million,) and a 19 percent decline in revenue ($4.2 billion,) which resulted in a $125 million net loss.

Furthermore, RIM's former co-CEO Jim Balsillie, who stepped down from his position in January, tendered his resignation from RIM's executive board. This brings a complete end to Balsillie's twenty year term with Research in Motion.

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